


Buck

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Blair meets his spirit animal





	Buck

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 Sentinel Bingo prompt 'spirit animals'

Buck

by Bluewolf

Blair was five when a shaman of the Skagit tribe told him to watch for the wolf.

He watched avidly for months but never saw one, and slowly he began to think that the old man had simply been playing a joke on the young boy who had listened to his stories with open-mouthed credulity.

By the time he was into his twenties, Blair had forgotten about the wolf - until the night he dreamed that he was in a forest somewhere, and a wolf moved confidently out of the undergrowth and pushed its nose against his hand.

He found himself stroking the animal; it responded by leaning harder against him, rubbing its head on his arm. And then he suddenly remembered, from twenty years earlier - 'Watch out for the wolf'.

So here it was, at last... but why? Why now?

Blair continued to stroke it, speaking gently to it, and suddenly realized that he was calling it, "Good boy... good Buck... "

He was still speaking to it when he woke.

'Watch out for the wolf.' Well, it had come at last, and why had he called it 'Buck'? Not that it mattered; why did anyone name their pet dog what they did? But he hoped he would meet it again in his dreams.

And then he remembered... the old shaman had had an elderly husky he had called 'Buck'. Blair smiled. He had liked the Skagit shaman; he been very unhappy when he thought the old man had been playing a trick on him. Now he knew it had not been a trick. He had finally met the wolf.

***

The next night, Blair met the wolf - Buck - again. _I wish, though, that you were real, not just a dream pet,_ he thought, even though he knew that no matter how much he might want a real-life pet, his busy life as a grad student, a TA working towards his dissertation, made having a pet unrealistic. Maybe a goldfish that he could feed in the morning when he got out of bed, but how much of a companion was a goldfish?

And then, one night, Buck arrived with a big - huge - black cat following him.

"Hello, Buck! Who's your friend?" It didn't occur to him to be frightened by the big cat; it was with Buck, and Buck wouldn't let it hurt him.

And then, to his complete astonishment, the cat rose on its hind legs and metamorphosed into a man. Taller than Blair by some inches, the man looked at him. "Find me," he said. "I need your help."

"Where can I find you?" Blair was used to living alone, to being too busy to appreciate company, but something about this man, the hopeless quality in his voice, appealed to his heart.

"Cascade General Hospital," he said. "My name is Ellison... Jim Ellison... " He metamorphosed back into what Blair realized was a black jaguar.

Buck nudged his hand. Blair smiled and stroked his friend with one hand, reaching out to the jaguar with the other. It moved closer and he ran a gentle hand across its back.

***

Blair woke at his usual time, wondering about going to Cascade General. Did Ellison work there, was he a patient? But there was nothing he could do about it first thing - he had a 9 am lecture to give. He washed, dressed, had a quick breakfast and headed for Rainier.

After the lecture he went back to the storage room that he used as an office. There was a fax lying on his desk.

It was from a nurse who had been in one of his classes, but when her father died suddenly she had been forced to quit university and get a paying job. And the fax spoke about a man who - Ellison!

Blair didn't have another class until the afternoon. He rushed out, heading for the hospital, thinking hard. Unless Ellison remembered asking him for help the previous night - and it was unlikely he would - the best bet was to get the man to Rainier, where Blair had all the info on heightened senses that he had gathered over the years.

Just where things would go after that, he didn't know... but he hoped that because Buck knew the jaguar, had brought the jaguar to him, that Ellison - Jim - would become a friend, and someone who could give him info on heightened senses.


End file.
